Late Adopters

Matt writes:

It’s interesting…that we’re seeing the emergence of a bifurcated media landscape and political conversation. People over a certain age exist in a universe where it’s almost as if the web doesn’t exist and things like the nightly news, the daily paper, and the cable networks are utterly dominant. For people below a certain age, the nightly news is totally irrelevant, the daily paper is primarily a website, and things like blogs and web videos matter a great deal.

This is one thing people forget when discussing…that people who watched Nixon debate Kennedy on television liked Kennedy, but those who listened on the radio liked Nixon. In 1960 television was still a relatively new technology, and an older, late-adopter segment of the population didn’t have it and listened to debates on the radio. That was a Nixon-friendly demographic, just as early-adopters of web technology today are Obama-friendly.

McCain, Obama, Hope and Fear

John Taylor makes some shrewd points:

In the midst of the Vietnam war, President Nixon came to office realizing that people needed the “lift of a driving dream” of peace rather than a further summons to endless twilight struggles. Obama is shrewd to invoke his and President Reagan’s policies toward the Soviets and Chinese, which were both substantively beneficial to U.S. interests and politically pleasing to voters. Neither President ever minimized the danger of communism. But they understood, each in his own way and era, that we could do business with Moscow and Beijing in ways that would serve our interests while also reducing the threat of war.

I don’t believe negotiating with Ahmadinejad is a good idea. But I do think that overcoming fear and invoking constructive diplomacy when needed is a key Obama asset in this campaign. McCain needs to do more than simply echo Bush’s dire predictions of doom, pursuit of an endless war, and adamant refusal to talk to enemies. Obama has learned from the campaign against the Clintons that he has less to fear by invoking hope than some believed only a short time ago. McCain needs to add such optimism and realism to his own mix of foreign policy ideas.

McCain On Iran

From his speech today:

An ill conceived meeting between the President of the United States and the President of Iran, and the massive world media coverage it would attract, would increase the prestige of an implacable foe of the United States, and reinforce his confidence that Iran’s dedication to acquiring nuclear weapons, supporting terrorists and destroying the State of Israel had succeeded in winning concessions from the most powerful nation on earth. And he is unlikely to abandon the dangerous ambitions that will have given him a prominent role on the world stage.

A meeting is itself a concession? And diplomacy is about prestige? Look: any "ill-conceived" meeting with any foreign leader is a bad idea. But a president should be open to anything that might advance the interests of the United States and its allies.

Ruling out any top-level face-to-face dialogue in advance as a blanket ban seems foolishly rigid to me. And it also seems to me that Ahmadinejad has scored some p.r. victories among those populations that the US needs to win over by appearing to be more open to dialogue than the US. McCain is right to put Iran’s power in perspective. It’s no super-power. But he’s wrong to treat diplomacy as a form of theater alone. Many presidents met with Soviet leaders, including Republican presidents.

We need to maintain maximal vigilance with respect to Tehran. But we should also not be afraid or forced into an isolated crouch. I’d say Obama is winning this early skirmish in the campaign.

Heads, Hearts, Marriage

A reader writes:

You wrote:

I stand conflicted here: my head is with restraint; my heart and my head are with equality.

I feel the same way, and my advice is — go with your heart. As a gay man of a certain age, my feeling that the California marriage decision will result in a backlash that will only set us back is eerily familiar. I remember feeling it when I first heard that some Massachusetts couples (against the wishes of gay organizations) filed suit to get married, I felt it again when the Supreme Court threw out the Texas sodomy law and when the Massachusetts Supreme Court ordered up gay marriage. In an election year, yet. In one sense, I was right to feel that way. The backlash against gay marriage in Massachusetts has resulted in constitutional bans in more than half the states.

And with what result? We’re winning!

In just the past five years, we have civil unions (remember how radical that concept was when it was first considered in Hawaii) in about a tenth of the states, opposition to gay marriage has dropped significantly in the polls, anti-discrimination bills are almost routinely passed even by Legislatures in red states and none of the presidential candidates favors the once motherhood-and-apple-pie federal marriage amendment.

What is less measurable, but far more important, is that gay people go about their lives and jobs with a casualness they didn’t enjoy even 10 years ago.

So — things are rosy? No. We could get clobbered in California in November.

But here’s the thing, Andrew, it’s the fight that’s important. If the past is any guide, the outcome won’t make any difference.

To understand how inexorable the gay movement is, put yourself in the shoes of a social conservative. For as long as they can remember, they’ve won almost every referendum, legislative vote and (despite what they fervently believe) most court decisions. The electoral victories are not even close. And yet the gay movement keeps gaining! If you’re a social conservative, gay people must seem like vampires — they keep driving a stake in our heart and yet we keep coming back.

If you’ve got a heart that strong, Andrew, you pay attention to it.